Tories, LibDems under election day cyberattack?

The website of the Conservative Party was hit by a denial of service attack early on Thursday morning, just as Britons went to the polls for the most closely-watched European elections for years.

The assault made the site largely unavailable between 7.23 and 8.20 on Thursday, after which service was restored more or less to normal. Britain goes to polls on Thursday to vote in local and European elections, so the timing of the apparent attack could hardly have come at a worse time.

A Conservative party official confirmed there had been a DDoS attack on the site on Thursday morning. He added that the website is built to handle the higher traffic associated with a general election, discounting huge visitor numbers as a possible explanation for problems with the site.

The Liberal Democrats website experienced even more severe problems on Thursday morning. The site, where reachable, displays a basic message saying "Oops something is wrong".

It's unclear whether a hacking attack is causing the problems. "We've had unusual traffic this week and problems with loading," a LibDem spokesman told El Reg.

News of the purported attacks on the two main opposition parties was first reported by tech-savvy political blogger Dizzy Thinks, who notes that the Labour Party's website is running as normal. The websites of UKIP and the BNP also seem unaffected by any kind of attack. ®